Desperate Remedies (1870) – Thomas Hardy Free Audiobook

Written by Thomas Hardy
Read by Anna Bentinck
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps

· Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
· Release date: 11-17-17
Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Thomas Hardy’s first published novel, Desperate Remedies is a thrilling blend of Gothic mystery and love-triangle romance.

After the untimely death of their parents, Cytheria and Owen Graye must go out into the world and fend for themselves. Cytheria’s journey leads her to the dark and mysterious household of Miss Aldclyffe, a capricious and eccentric woman, who steers Cytheria into a love affair with her charismatic steward Aeneous Manston. All is not what it seems, and Cytheria finds herself entangled in a violent web of lust, murder, deception and blackmail.

With its beautiful and evocative scenes, along with themes of fate and class, the novel contains many traces of Hardy’s signature style, and is a unique take on the Victorian ‘sensation’ novel.

“At this point it shouldn’t be a spoiler to say the book has a mostly happy ending. It gets there by some of the most melodramatically thrilling plot twists Hardy ever wrote. Toward the end it becomes something of a mystery novel, with one professional and several amateur detectives on the case; and it’s topped off with not one but two deathbed confessions.”

Format of the book is in Chapters and sub-chapters detailing THE EVENTS OF THIRTY YEARS – 1843-1061

“Anna Bentinck valiantly works to keep Thomas Hardy’s early story of love and deception consistently compelling. An unconventional narrator, Bentinck takes pauses in unusual places, injecting a note of spontaneity into Hardy’s occasionally hard-going descriptive passages. Hardy’s story is highly character driven, and while Bentinck’s style doesn’t quite make the most of the variation in character, her dignified portrayal of each of the cast proves empathetic and humanizing, thereby grounding the drama in realistic emotion. Though she occasionally resorts to slightly hammy accents, her sensitivity to the mental state of the characters is charming and engaging, and drives the listener through the stodgier sections of Hardy’s prose. This proves all the more rewarding once the plot picks up and the book itself becomes irresistibly interesting.”— AudioFile